Fate Interrupted 3 (11 page)

Dean’s gaze
narrowed. “You don’t sound so sure.”

“Find out soon
enough,
Dean
,” the captain replied,
going to put the gun away.

Dean turned back
to the water just as something took one of the fishing lines, pulling it out
with a long
zing
that dragged the
boat with it.

“Oh, shit it’s
her!” Will cried, whipping out his gun and aiming at the water.

Chapter
Seventeen

Carrie arrived
at Brooke’s house shortly after Evy had, her blonde hair reaching out in all
directions, dark bags resting beneath her eyes. “I still can’t believe this,”
she said, dropping her purse onto a gray couch.

“You?”
Brooke retorted,
staring at her cell phone, a dumbfounded look hanging from her ears. “This
doesn’t make any sense!”

“If Shaun’s not
already dead, he’s going to be when I get through with him.” Carrie checked her
cell phone again. “I had to take the girls to the neighbors – who, let me tell
you, were just thrilled about someone knocking on their door at four thirty in
the morning. We’re lucky we didn’t get shot!”

“They’re not
dead,” Evy said from a high-backed armchair that made her seem as small as her
voice. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed her mind. Maybe their
boat had hit a rock or caught on fire, tragedies she saw on the news more than
once each and every summer. Dark thoughts consumed her because only
dark thoughts
could explain the
unexplainable. They weren’t swimming at Shaun’s, or partying in Chicago into
the wee hours of the night. Something had happened.
Something
bad.

Carrie’s shoulders
slumped. “I’m sorry, honey. I know they’re not. My mouth doesn’t work well
before coffee and makeup.” She fluffed her bed-head and poured herself a cup of
coffee. “Anyone call Pam yet?
Because I’m not giving Jon a
ride home.
This is probably all his fault. He can walk for all I care.”

“She’s on her
way.”

“What’d she say?”
Carrie asked, coming back into the living room and sinking into the couch with
a winded sigh. “Was she pissed?”

“I don’t think
she was pissed. She sounded wide awake.”

Brooke looked
up.
“At this hour?”

“God, I miss the
days of still being awake at this hour, going to Denny’s for breakfast and laughing
at all the people heading to work.” Carrie took a careful sip from the steaming
mug and dropped a hand on Evy’s knee, stirring her from her twisted thoughts.
“Live it up while ya can, ladies, because the next thing ya know, you can’t
even get a quickie in without tripping over some damn toy.”

Brooke’s phone
rang. She looked down at the screen and her heart hitched in her chest. “It’s
Ben.”

Chapter
Eighteen

The shoreline
got bigger and so
did the foreboding feeling in the pit of
Dean’s stomach. Standing on the bow, he watched the Milwaukee Harbor Patrol slowly
tow them toward an outcrop of tall buildings looming in the distance. Not even
nine in the morning and the sun was already getting hot. If that Cessna hadn’t
of called in their location, they would have been getting thirsty by now, too
thirsty for three bottles of water to handle.

“How
noided
out was that?”

Dean rotated his
head a quarter turn.

Jon snorted.
“Who knew we’d run into the cops way out here. I think they know I’ve got bud.”

Dean looked back
to the Harbor Patrol boat - a cross between a tug boat and a storm chaser – and
watched it pull them closer. Part of him wished they were still two hours away,
like when their rescue had materialized out of thin air. Now, he was that much
closer to the storm waiting for him back at the marina. In a few minutes, he
would be in harm’s way.
Harm’s way of Hurricane Evy.
And
there would be no shelter.

“Hey, man, I’m
really sorry, Dean.”

Dean blinked
back to reality and twisted around to face Jon, fantasizing about how easy it
would be to push him overboard right now. Into the cold water where the mermaid
could have her way with him because that’s what he deserved.

“We had no idea
things would go south like this,” Jon continued, dropping Dean’s chilly glare.

Dean took off
his ball cap and let the wind run through his hair. “Not surprising. You have
no idea about a lot of things.”

The color fled
Jon’s face. He pulled his blond bangs from his eyes and held them out of the
way. “I suppose I got that coming.”

“You
suppose
?” Dean glanced at the whipped
cream stain invading his crotch like Custer’s Calvary.

“Hey, at least I
caught a king salmon,” Shaun said, offering up a halfhearted smile.

Dean looked at
him for a few seconds and then walked away.

Shaun stared
after him, jaw flapping in the wind. “Shit.”

“We fucked this
up good, didn’t we?”

Shaun glanced at
Jon and swallowed dryly. “We did.”

“So who’s
Cassandra?” Will asked.

Captain Taylor
lifted his caterpillar-like eyebrows into his wrinkled forehead. “Cassandra was
my wife of thirty-two years.” He watched the patrol boat through distant eyes.
“Cancer took her
tree
years ago and I can tell ya one
thing, Dean.”

Dean looked up.

“The colors
ain’t
so
bright without her, the
rain not as sweet.” Taylor rested a hand on the powerless steering wheel and
shut one eye against the rising sun “Time is a precious thing you can’t get
back, and Lord knows I wish I could; every fight, every late night spent
fixin
the boat, every time I was too tired to even kiss her
goodnight.” He turned back to Dean and lowered his voice, the smell of cigar
floating on his breath. “I wish I could get
em
all
back and just…enjoy being with her.” A weak smile revealed his yellowed teeth.
“If only I had known that back then.”

Dean studied the
captain for a few seconds, unable to look away. His cell phone vibrated in his
pocket. He pulled it out, afraid to even look, and brought the screen to life.

Three
voicemails from Evy.

And
five text messages.

He shut his eyes
and grimaced, his stomach tightening. When he opened them again, he could make
out four tiny silhouettes standing alongside the dock.

Chapter
Nineteen

From this
distance, Dean could see the four silhouettes had their arms folded across
their chests and were, more than likely, shivering in the cool breeze rolling
off the lake. The patrol boat nudged Cassandra into her slip before pulling
away with a quick wave. Captain Taylor tied the boat down while Dean took a deep
breath. He cringed when Sky and Kat dropped the blanket to the bench. In the
light of day, their bikinis were even more revealing than he had thought and
their tattoos screamed
stripper
as
much as their clear high heels.

He didn’t wait
for anyone else and hopped off the boat onto the dock. His legs felt like
rubber as he approached the four women staring back at him from the edge of the
parking lot. After what seemed like a three mile walk in the desert, Dean
stopped in front of Evy. He opened his mouth to speak but the look on her face
choked his words.

“Are you okay?”
she asked, looking him up and down.

“I’m fine, tired
but fine.” He glanced at Pam, Carrie and Brooke before turning back to Evy.
“I’m sorry this happened. The boat conked out and there was no cell phone
signal. But everyone is fine.”

Evy’s eyes
darted to Kat and Sky as Captain Taylor helped them off the boat, her wounded
gaze then lowering to the stain on Dean’s pants. “So, what’d you catch?”

“By the looks of
it, I’d say gonorrhea,” Brooke said, watching Sky and Kat stagger up the dock
in high heels that clacked loudly against the planks.

“It’s not what
you think.”

Evy studied
their skimpy outfits and zipped up her purple
hoodie
.
“Oh wait, are those scantily clad strippers leaving your boat?”

Dean opened his
mouth.

“Then it’s
exactly what I think!” Evy examined the stain on his jeans with an intense look
on her face. “At least it looks like you had a good time.”

“Evy, listen…”

“Is…that my
dad?”

Dean followed
her bewildered gaze behind him.

Will waved,
slinging his backpack over a shoulder and hurrying up the dock.

“Dad?”
Evy gasped,
clutching her chest. “What are you doing here?”

“I came up to
surprise Dean.” He glanced at Kat and Sky as they stopped beside him.

“Thank you for
the advice, Mr. Burnett,” Sky said softly. “I am going to find a different job
and go back to college after all.”

He pressed his
lips together. “That’s great to hear, Sky.”

She flashed him
a tight-lipped smile, carefully avoiding Evy’s piercing glare, and walked away,
holding Kat’s arm for support.

“And were they
your idea?”

Will’s eyes
flicked back to Evy. “Me?” He laughed. “No, they weren’t my idea.”

Evy exchanged an
arctic look with Dean and turned back to her father. “Where are you staying?”

“I was going to
stay at a hotel, but I’m driving back today.”

“Today?”

He checked his
watch. “Yeah, Brooke & Ben are going to drop me off at my hotel on their
way home.”

Evy stepped
closer. “Why are your eyes so bloodshot?”

“Just tired,” he
said, “listen, none of us got any sleep last night and Dean had no idea about
anything
.”

“This was
Shaun’s idea, wasn’t it?” Carrie asked, watching her husband offload coolers
and chairs with Jon.

Dean started to
respond and Carrie cut him off with a pointed look.

“That was a
rhetorical question.”

“Hi,” Ben said,
stopping next to Dean and catching his breath. “Miss me?”

Brooke sharpened
her gaze and jerked her chin toward the parking lot. “Did you know about the
lot lizards?”

He followed her heated
gaze to the strippers climbing into
Mikey’s
yellow
Hummer. “I had no idea, and neither did Dean.”

“I knew it,”
Carrie grumbled, her hair blowing in the wind.

Brooke tapped a
dubious sneaker against the dock.

Ben sighed, his
coat on his arm. “Brooke, you know I would never lie to you.”

Her eyes
widened.
“Oh, really,
Roger
.”

Ben’s chest sunk
as a long breath escaped him. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are
you?”

Brooke grabbed
him by the shirt. “Come on,
Leatherface
,” she said,
towing him toward his big black F-150. She looked back over her shoulder at
Will.
“You, too!”

“Coming!”
Will placed his
hands on Evy’s arms. “I’m sorry about all of this, sweetie, but don’t take it
out on Dean. It wasn’t his idea.”

She stared at
her father, unmoved.

He kissed her on
the cheek and tried to smile. “I’ll call you when I get back home.”

She replied with
a tight nod and, grudgingly, kissed him back.

Will started for
Ben’s truck and then stopped and turned. “And don’t tell your mother about any
of this!”

Evy kept her
gaze locked firmly on Dean.

He pulled his
hat down lower to prevent the wind from stealing it. “Why’d she call him
Roger
?”

“If you want a
ride, I suggest you keep up.”

Dean watched his
fiancé walk away, exhaling a depleted breath. “That went well.”

“She’ll be
fine,” Carrie said, glaring at her husband as he and Jon lugged a large cooler
up the dock. “She knows who to blame. We all do.”

Pam stepped
closer, the breeze brushing her long dark hair over the shoulder of a red
leather jacket. “It was Jon’s idea, wasn’t it?
The strippers?”

Dean stared
blankly at her. “I…”

“You can tell
me, I won’t get mad.”

Carrie laughed.
“That makes one of us, girl!”

Pam turned back
Jon and Shaun and snorted. “Boys will be boys.”

“Yes, they
will,” Carrie replied under her heated breath. “Boys will also sleep on the
couch.”

Dean smiled
thinly and got marching before Evy pulled away and left him in the dust. He considered
catching a ride with someone else but knew the ride back to his place would be much
quieter with Evy. And that was fine with him. Right now, he just wanted his own
bed and some serious sleep, even if fever-type dreams followed him down the
rabbit hole. It would be no use trying to reason with her now anyway. His mind
was a bowl of soggy noodles and he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Dean climbed into
the passenger side of the silver Honda Fit and gently shut the door, trying not
to wake the dull thud stirring behind his right eye. Evy sat behind the wheel,
staring out over the dash. With the windows rolled up, it was quiet, the
ambiance of the lake replaced by the beating of his heart.

“I don’t get why
you felt like you had to go behind my back to do this.”

Dean turned to
his side window and exhaled a long breath that fogged up the window. “I didn’t
go behind your back.”

“I told you I
didn’t care if…”

His head snapped
around. “I had no idea those girls would be coming! Okay?”

“Well, then why
did you get on the boat with them in the first place?”

“They met us a
few miles out because Shaun knew I wouldn’t
get
on the boat
if I knew they were coming.”

Evy looked him
right in the eye and carefully chose her next words. “Did you have sexual
relations with either one of those girls?”

“What?” he
replied, body tensing. “No!”

“Then what is
that stain on your jeans?”

He looked down.
“It’s whipped cream.”

“Whipped cream?
Oh, how nice!”

“She fell into
me when the boat hit something, which is when we lost power.”

“Ha! Do you
think I’m really that stupid?”

An image of Sky
going down on Jon slashed through his
groggy
mind. He
blinked it away.
“Like I would ever have sex with either one
of those
skanks
!
Get fucking real!”

“I know what
strippers do with cans of whipped cream, and it has nothing to do with
strawberry shortcake!”

“Good for you,
Evy. And thanks for having zero faith in me. It’s good to know you think so
highly
of me.”

“Don’t try to
turn this on me, Dean! I’m the one who’s been up all night worried sick!”

He shut his eyes
and cringed, considering calling a cab. He tried to roll his window down,
desperate for some fresh air, but the car wasn’t running and the button only
clicked dryly.

She leaned
against her door, sizing him up with arms folded across her breasts. “Did
anyone else?”

“Did anyone else
what?”

“Have sexual
relations of any kind with either one of those girls.”

Dean opened his
mouth, world spinning, palms sweating, trying to fit a square peg into a round
hole.

Her green eyes
stuck to him like glue as she anxiously awaited his answer. “And I will know if
you’re lying to me.”